Cody S.: ok thanks for the help full insight, ok so if the "daily pricing wouldn't be the ideal way of pricing how would you go about doing it?

Okay well let me put it like this. First, get a wheel tape and measure everything that needs materials, then figure out what you need of each. So here is my "example" of how I would price a job like that.

Say the area is 100x75. This is 7,500 sq ft. Now, say you need top soil. Once you grade to subgrade it shouldn't be too bad to accept sod, however I do not know what you are dealing with. For the sake of the example, I'm going to say that I rented a compact tractor for $175/day and graded it, and I only needed a small layer of topsoil, say 2 inches down, so I'm going to get about 45 yards of topsoil. Say I get topsoil for $20/yard, this comes out to about $900. Now comes the sod. If I can get sod for $0.20 per sq foot, then that translates into $1500 for sod. So, so far for materials we have $900 for topsoil, and $1500 for sod. Then there is the $175/day cost of renting the tractor, however you cannot justify adding in that cost to the cost of the job. A good reason why is if another company had a machine they would not have a "rental fee" in their bid, and it would be lower.

So, you have $2,400 in materials. Now, what are your labor costs? Now say you have 20 bushes to remove, all medium sized shrubs. With the bucket on the tractor you can get one out in 20 min. This translates to 6 hours of labor. For that lets say you charge $360. However, that is without dump fees, which unless you leave them there or have a place to take them, you will have those. So after dump fees you charge $400. You have your labor for the bushes, lets get your final cost now. Based on my example numbers, and my labor rates, I would charge between $6,000 and $6,500. That is on the higher end.

Remember, this is all an example, but it should give you an idea how to price.Posted via Mobile Device